primotipo…

I’ll take the one with stripes…Brian Foley’s Alfa Romeo 1750 GTAm on the showroom floor of his Parramatta Alfa Romeo dealership, Sydney in 1972.

Look at all those 105s, a 2-litre Spyder with a Berlina alongside, boxy Giulia Super, a couple of 1750 GTVs, oh, and a 1750 GTAm at centre-stage, as it should be.

There have been some stunning ex-works touring cars raced in Australia down the decades, the must lustworthy for me are Alan Moffat’s ’69 KarKraft Mustang Trans-Am, his ’75 RS3100 ‘Cologne’ Capri and Foley’s GTAm.

Brian made his name in Minis. Together with Melbourne’s Peter ‘Skinny’ Manton, he was top of the Cooper S pops in the mid-1960s and became an outright contender with acquisition of a Porsche 911S in 1970. But if the Porker was outgunned by the big V8s in the Australian Touring Car Championship – Pete Geoghegan and Allan Moffat Mustangs, Norm Beechey’s Holden Monaro GTS350 and Bob Jane’s Camaro – Brian’s GTAm would struggle bigtime, and so it did.

The purchase made commercial sense though. Brian Foley Automotive, formed in 1967, became an Alfa Romeo dealer, Foley had support for the car from Alfa Romeo Australia in addition to old sponsor, Castrol, Alitalia and of course Chesterfield ciggies.

Toine Hezeman had already won the 1970 European Touring Car Championship – four wins in nine rounds – in a works-1750 GTAm by the time Foley ordered his car.

While the Giulia Sprint GTA (700kg) was built by Alfa Romeo, the 1750 GTAm (970kg) (2000 GTAm from the introduction of the 2000 GTV) was built by Autodelta, and sometimes by other specialists using bodies they acquired or were supplied by clients, then built up with parts supplied by Autodelta.

See ‘Olaf Zagato’s’ wonderful post on The Nostalgia Forum which helps unravel the fine detail around the GTAm including specifications, Autodelta’s vast option list and a list of chassis numbers: https://forums.autosport.com/topic/80331-alfa-giulia-gtam/?p=10612593

The model was homologated around the US version of the 1750 GTV – Tipo 105.51 – these cars were left-hookers’ fitted with Spica fuel injection to meet emissions regs: for racing purposes the rules allowed the use of competition fuel injection, usually Lucas. Having said that, right hand drive Tipo 105.44 shells were also used.

For years there have been several schools of thought as to the ‘Am’ bit of the name. One was that it stood for alleggorita maggiorata – increased and lightened, another was alleggorita modificata – modified and lightened, and the other is that the Am stood for America. Marco Fazio of Alfa Romeo Documentazione Storico put the matter to rest when he confirmed on the Spettacolo Sportivo in September 2011 that ‘America’ is the official type name, therefore Alfa Romeo 1750 GTAm/Alfa Romeo 2000 GTAm.

Chassis #1531068 was completed by Autodelta on February 24, 1970. It was acquired by Foley late in the year after an uncertain history, perhaps it had been used as a test hack during the Targa Florio weekend by works T33/3 drivers. When it arrived in Sydney, the car’s mechanicals: engine, gearbox and differential required rebuilds, so Foley missed the first three rounds of the 1971 Australian Touring Car Championship at Symmons Plains, Calder and Sandown.

Foley was then sixth at Surfers Paradise, fifth at Mallala and seventh at Lakeside. He missed the final round at Oran Park because he loaned the engine to David McKay for his assault on the Dulux Rally aboard a 1750 GTV (above). See here for more about the Dulux, not the correct year mind you: https://primotipo.com/2015/04/09/australias-cologne-capris/

Wanting to race competitively and give his sponsors a reasonable crack of the whip, Foley decided to run the car as a Sports Sedan in 1972, a class that allowed more significant modifications to be made.

He and his mechanics, Colin Devaney and Colin James created a unique GTAm by fitting a Tipo 33 2.5-litre V8 into the reasonably tight engine bay!

Alec Mildren Racing had a float of three of these 2.5-litre, quad-cam, two-valve, twin-plug, fuel injected V8s that had been fitted to the team’s Brabham BT23D and Mildren ‘Yellow Submarine’ single-seaters raced by Frank Gardner and Kevin Bartlett from late 1967 until late 1969 (the Sub was fitted with a Waggott in time for the Hordern Trophy in December 1969). KB won Gold Stars in 1968-69 so equipped.

When Mildren replaced the Tipo 33 V8s with Merv Waggotts 2-litre TC-4V engines Foley bought one of the V8s in bits. When rebuilt it gave circa 305bhp.

It wasn’t that simple though, the all aluminium engine was an incredibly tight fit, with Foley telling Australian Muscle Car’s Paul Newby that the sub-optimal exhaust system they were forced to run could have lost up to 50bhp. Costly, given the V8 was 70kg heavier than the 1985cc twin-cam, two-valve, twin-plug, fuel injected four which gave 194bhp when it was first rebuilt, and 217bhp after further development.

The car was converted to RH-steering during the rebuild – which involved a bigger hole in the floor pan to accommodate a larger bell-housing – but the running gear otherwise remained as built by Autodelta: gearbox, diff, suspension, Campagnolo wheels and brakes.

Newby wrote that the car had wins at Adelaide and Amaroo Park, and one victory over Allan Moffat’s Mustang at Warwick Farm and a successful visit to Malaysia.

Despite that, Foley decided a better Sports Sedan starting position was a much lighter aluminium GTA, to that end he bought the ex-Mildren/Foley RHD GTA and gave it to Bowin Designs’ John Joyce to work his magic. A story for another time.

Over time it’s amazing how many racing Alfa Romeos have headed West, perhaps the LHD Mildren GTA was the first…Sure enough, when Foley advertised the GTAm it was Perth Fiat dealer Frank Cecchele who bought it, a good thing!

Gordon Stephenson was his driver, but it wasn’t too long before CAMS caught up with them. The GTAm was powered by an exotic full-race V8, it was not a production based engine as the rules required. While the Montreal V8 might look a bit the same, it shares not one component with Autodelta’s race V8.

After a while in the naughty-boys-corner, it was fitted a twin-turbo Rover V8 and won some state titles so powered in the 1980s before it was badly damaged in a testing accident at Wanneroo, by that time the car was fitted with a twin-turbo Fiat V6.

Various approaches were made to Cecchele down the decades to buy #1531068, and finally he succumbed to Vin Sharp’s entreaties in 2006. Vin is a member of a much respected Victorian Alfa Romeo family and has done a brilliant job restoring the car to original condition aided and abetted by Cecchele who kept all of the key components, with the exception of the engine.

Specifications…

Summary of Peter Wherrett’s article on the Foley GTAm published in the June 1971 issue of Racing Car News

Body: Steel, bonnet and boot lid fibreglass, doors aluminium GTA with sliding perspex windows, all glass other than the laminated screen are perspex. The lower half of each guard is fitted with fibreglass flares which are bonded or pop riveted. Lightweight bumper if required.

All interior trim is removed and replaced with lightweight material. Front seats fibreglass, dashboard replaced with a lightweight unit, Momo steering wheel

Engine: 1985cc, DOHC, two-valve, twin-plug, Lucas fuel injected four cylinder, aluminium engine. 84.55×99.5mm bore/stroke. 220bhp DIN @ 7200rpm quoted.

Gearbox: 5-speed GTA with vast choice of gear and diff ratios

Suspension:

Front: Independent coil springs, Armstrong adjustable heavy duty double acting shock absorbers, heavy duty anti roll bar

Rear: Coil springs with coaxially mounted Armstrong fully adjustable, heavy duty, double acting shock absorbers. Adjustable heavy duty roll bar

Rear axle: Anchored to the body structure by two trailing arms and upper magnesium A-brackets for transverse anchorages; all with metal bushes on the frame and axle. Hypoid final drive with pawl and clutch type limited slip differential. Choice of final drive ratios

Wheels: Standard wheels are Campagnolo 13 x 9 inch and 13 x 10 inch Minilites “which have an additional inch of offset over those from Autodelta to allow the car to fully exploit local regulations with a track two inches wider than the homologated figure.” The 10 inch rims will be dries, the 9 inchers wets.

Brakes: Four wheel discs, ventilated at the front, aluminium calipers

 Etcetera…

Two more shots of the Hezemans/Facetti GTAm during the July 24-25 1971 Spa 24-Hour.

The car’s head and radiator were replaced during the event, the strategically long pit stops of the other two Autodelta cars ensured the pair finished third. The race was won by the the Dieter Glemser/Alex Soler-Roig Ford Capri RS2600.

Homologation link: https://historicdb.fia.com/car/alfa-romeo-1750-gt-am

Credits…

James Semple, Lynton Hemer, Colin James, Dick Simpson, John Lemm, Brian Jackson, Olaf Zagato on The Nostalgia Forum, Racing Car News May 1971, John Rogers, Brier Thomas, Euan Bottcher, Bob Williamson Collection, Glenn Moulds Collection

Tailpieces…

It seems sorta-right to conclude with Foley’s subsequent weapon of war, an even lighter variant of the ex-Mildren-French GTA ‘RHD’, at Calder in May 1973.

My friend Lynton Hemer captured ‘Foles’ saying gedday to the fans on the warm-down lap of the 1971 AGP touring car support race, GTAm, seems a nice way to finish…

Finito…